The Maasai culture

The Maasai people in Kenya

 

One is wooden and the other made of flesh and blood. However, sometimes it is difficult to tell the difference. They both stand on the left leg, the right foot effortlessly hooked on the crook of the knee of the other. They spot long ochre-dyed hair and red sheets as the only attire on the body. A spear in the right hand and a stern face complete the picture. One of them is a carving of a Maasai man and the other is a living member of the Maasai community and, in this case, the difference between the two is obscure because they are one thing: merchandise for the tourism industry.  
Merchandise is put in shops for display and that is why there are Maasai carvings in curio shops. Real Maasai are merchandise and that is why they are displayed at the entrances of some hotels as some special attraction. Merchandise must be glamorised so that it can appeal and so it is natural for the Maasai people to be given a glossy finish on post cards and tourist marketing brochures. In the end, the myth is sold of a warrior and warlike tribe somewhere in Africa. The tribe's male live on the hearts of the lions they kill in the sprawling savanna. For a change of diet, they turn to blood and milk.

The myth must be seen in its natural form which is in the wild so the mini buses loaded with tourists armed with whining cameras crisscross Maasai land . The Maasai on their part have learned that there is a dollar in being merchandise of the curio type. So they turn out in front of their manyattas (kraal) as if in Hollywood. For a dollar, the tourist can both see this creature of the wild and photograph it. For a job well done to deliver the merchandise to the tourists, the tour guide gets his tip. The curio dealer in town is thus matched by the human curio dealer in the Maasai plains.

The tourist goes back home and says that he has seen Africa. He claims that he has seen man almost at his primeval stage. Yet another lie is sold. One does not blame the tourist for buying the image for it has been sold to him by the Kenya Government through its tourists offices. The image has been marketed by tour companies, hotels and other tourism merchandising concerns. The tourist buys an irresistible package of lies that culture is a commodity to be bought and sold in the open market. The same package contains very palatable lies that the only cultures that exist in Kenya are those of the so-called "un-urbanised" tribes.